Tax Issues Not Draw For Voters

Little Interest In Ballot Questions

Sugar Grove village officials called a forum recently to explain the village's need for a tax increase to fund an ambulance district.

One voter showed up.

Similarly, when Geneva city and township officials called the first of three public meetings to discuss a pair of referendum items seeking a combined $14.9 million, three citizens sat in a room filled with otherwise empty chairs.

Geneva is seeking to issue $6 million in bonds to finance street repairs, and the township wants to spend nearly $9 million to build and equip senior citizen housing.

"I heard the statement at that meeting that this is democracy at its best," said Geneva Township Supervisor Richard Lindholm. "One-hundred-percent apathy."

Apathy, however, is an emotion that proponents of tax-increasing proposals can ill afford because they must seek voter approval for any increases above the legislatively mandated collar county tax cap.

The law says taxing bodies can't ask for more than a 5-percent increase or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Since the cap took effect three years ago, about half the tax-increasing proposals placed on DuPage ballots have passed.

"It is a problem of reaching the people," Lindholm said. "Our concern is that they won't give (the two proposals) enough study and in that case the easiest vote is a no vote."

Sugar Grove Village Trustee Kathleen Flaherty-Petrick acknowledged that she was flabbergasted by the lack of voter interest. Fire officials want to add a state-of-the art ambulance to the one ambulance it owns at a cost of about $90 a year on the property tax bill on a $140,000 home.

"I think it's just that people aren't aware of what's going on," Flaherty-Petrick said. "They may hear that there's a referendum and that we need money, but maybe they stop listening once they hear the part about `We need money.' "

Taxpayers in both DuPage and Kane Counties have plenty of nickels and dimes to ponder as nearly three dozen referendums, about a third of them school-financing measures, dot various ballots.

Among them, Milton Township wants taxpayers to pay an average $8-a-year increase to allow the township to add a second police officer, a proposal that was rejected in March.

In Bloomingdale, the library board wants to expand its building, buy more books and add additional business hours at a cost of $3.6 million, or about $14 a year for the typical taxpayer.

Meanwhile, Kaneland schools want to add 58 cents per $100 of equalized assessed valuation to keep the district in the black.

The list runs the gamut from requests for tax increases for police, library, park and fire protection districts to the option for residents of the Belmont-Highwood Water Service District in unincorporated Downers Grove to dissolve their current carcinogen-tainted system and tap into Lake Michigan water.

But the fear of voter apathy is widespread. Even in Naperville, where Unit School District 203 is seeking a tax increase as a life raft in a sea of red ink, officials wonder if people are listening.

Although dozens of voters turned out Monday to hear the debate in a forum at City Hall, District 203 Supt. Donald Weber said similar sessions held in many of the district's 21 schools have been sparsely attended.

"I'm not sure how to read that," Weber said. "It could mean that people are well informed and have made up their minds. Or it could be apathy."

The school district is asking for an 11.4-percent increase, adding $221 to the property tax bill on a $200,000 house. The $7-million increase in the first year would go toward paying off a $4.5-million debt and buying high-tech equipment.

But some plans have drawn plenty of attention.

In Lisle, a Park District proposal that would include funds to build a $5-million recreation facility is so controversial that a park board trustee has organized an anti-tax citizens group to fight it.

Lisle taxpayers' bills will drop by about 3 cents if voters approve the 15-cent Park District levy because another debt recently has been retired. But bills will fall by 18 cents if they don't.

Park Board President Judith Loftus said the proposed facility, which would include a gymnasium and an indoor pool, would get plenty of use, but Trustee Robert Pribish argued that senior citizens and low-income residents can't afford to keep paying tax increases.

To prove his point, Pribish has organized a community action group called Citizens United to Keep the Taxes from Getting So High that We Can't Afford to Live in Lisle.

Among other items some DuPage voters will decide Tuesday is a $6-million bond issue to renovate four high schools in Glenbard Township High School District 87. Officials there say the revenue will not increase taxpayers' bills as it will be offset by an expiring bond.

In Roselle, voters are being asked to spend an extra $232 a year on a $150,000 home to hire elementary school staff and shrink a deficit. At the same time, the village's Library District hopes voters will forgo a rate decrease of about $30 a year and use the money to pay for additional supplies and expanded operating hours.

In Kane County, Batavia residents could approve a $3.4-million bond to enlarge and update the century-old government complex. Yorkville School District 115 wants $18.3 million to build new facilities and renovate existing ones.